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| Hiking | 1.50 Miles |
400 AEG |
| | Hiking | 1.50 Miles | 2 Hrs | | 0.75 mph |
| 400 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | | I decided to take my kids to do a southwest hike before the weather got too hot, we were not disappointed. Dragging kids out of bed to get on the road by a specified time is almost harder than a 5.0 difficulty hike! For some reason all the rpomises made the day before go out the window at 7:30AM on a Saturday morning. As stated in the directions on this site, it was 18 miles south on Highway 95 from I10 to the Palm Canyon turnoff. This sign only gives you about a 25 yard notice so go slowly when around the 18 mile distance. Once we were on the turnoff and drove toward the short little hike up into the canyon, all disparaging remarks ceased. I took several pictures and put some up on this site. We hiked a very short while, probably a half a mile to get to what appeared to be the end of the trail with a single sign in hte shape of an arrow stating "Palms". You could stand there and look way up onto the side of the cliff and look at them off in the distance, or you could hike up the cliff. My daughter stayed behind as my sons and I hiked up the narrow trail and into some steep tight spots but nothing impassible. Once we got up to the palms you could see a spectacular view looking down and out away from them and the sheer rock cliffs were awesome. The little cove where the native palms thrive is a beautiful little microcosm of an extreme eastern edge of California wilderness overflowed into Arizona, as if by nature just to prove man-made borders are artificial. My son ponted out while we rested by the palm sign after the hike down that there was a huge gouge in one of the eastern cliffs as if it had fallen out of the cliff during some geological event, but where the remnants of the cliff ended up was not visibly apparent. Maybe it rolled down into the valley or broke up and became part of the rocky ground leading up to the palm cove. During the hake back you can see the entire valley looking west and near in the distance you can see what appears to be an Egyptian pyramid with two little ones next to it. This intrigued me so I took several pictures looking out that way. On the drive back we decided to have lunch and found a small little Mexican place continuiing north a little bit off the throughfare through Quartzite name La Casa. It was a nice little place with a vary diverse menu, however we had to scrap to keep what little cash I had under the budget as they do not take credit cards so beware, nor do they have beer. However they did take personal checks so that allowed me to get a meal along with my kids. When back on the main throughfare getting back to I10, we found there was another place that would have suited our needs named Taco Mio, but we didn't stop in. The drive from Glendale took about 2 hours and most of it was freeway. The dirt road leading up to the trail head was in excellent condition. There were very few people on the trail, we only ran into 7 other people besides ourselves however there were more cars there than could be explained for the few people so I assumed there were people camping there. At the parking site next to the trail head there was a sign leading to trails indicating camping was near but I didn't follow the trail (which split into two) to the end. I should have because there may hae been trails leading to the weird looking hills to the north of the parking lot so maybe longer hiking trails are available, I don't know. This was definately worth the trip. The two complaining kids were all smiles after all was said and done and I was able to log a southwest hike. Now all that is left for me to do to complete the compass wheel is a northwest hike, but I have all summer to do one now since the weather north will be more tolerable during the summer. |
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